Speaking of the desert, let's first talk about the area where Pig Three lived. It was west of Zhangye City, Gansu Province, less than three hundred kilometers in a straight line from the famous Badain Jaran Desert.
Of course, Pig Three could not possibly run all the way to the Badain Jaran Desert for a barbecue.
Within sixty or seventy kilometers of the county town where Pig Three lived, there were three deserts of varying sizes.
A lot of friends wondered, how could you barbecue in the desert without water?
Actually, there were very few rivers around here, and wild water could not be drunk. So no matter where we went to barbecue, we would wash most of the vegetables at home, then bring along one or two buckets of water.
So where you chose to barbecue had nothing to do with local characteristics. The key was having somewhere for the children to play.
The desert was absolutely a paradise for children.
When going out into the wild for a barbecue, the food was secondary. The main point was taking the children out to play.
Several friends would bring their children along. With three or four kids gathered together, they could play themselves crazy.
The sand had not been hot these past few days. The children played barefoot in the desert, slid down the dunes on homemade sandboards, built desert castles, and so on.
The adults played with the children too. That vast, open feeling in the desert was especially exhilarating.
And because it was a small county town and the desert was so vast, there was nobody at all in the area we picked—just our group. We could shout and yell as much as we liked.
If any brothers came over to Zhangye, they could contact Pig Three and